Balin And Balan

________________________________________________
Title:     Balin And Balan
Author: Molly K. Bellew [More Titles by Bellew]

King Pellam owed Arthur some tribute money so Arthur told three of his knights to go see about it and collect it for him.

"Very well," said one of the knights, "but listen, on the way to King Pellam's country, near Camelot, there are two strange knights sitting beside a fountain. They challenge and overthrow every knight that passes. Shall I stop to fight them as we go by and send them back to you?"

Arthur laughed, "No, don't stop for anything; let them wait until they can find some one stronger themselves."

With that the three men left. But after they had gone Arthur, who loved a good fight himself, started away early one morning for the fountain side of Camelot. On its right hand he saw the knight Balin sitting under an alder tree, with his horse beside him, and on the left hand under a poplar tree with his horse at his side sat the knight Balan.

"Fair sirs," cried Arthur, "why are you sitting here?"

"For the sake of glory," they answered. "We're stronger than all Arthur's court. We've proved that because we easily overthrow every knight that comes by here."

"Well, I'm of Arthur's court, too," replied the king, "although I've never done so much in jousts as in real wars. But see whether you can overthrow me so easily too."

So the two brothers came out boldly and fought with Arthur, but he struck them both lightly down, then softly came away and nobody knew anything about it.

But that evening while Balin and Balan sat very meekly by the bubbling water a spangled messenger came riding by and cried out to them: "Sirs, you are sent for by the King."

So they followed the man back to the court. "Tell me your names," demanded Arthur, "and why do you sit there by the fountain?"

"My name is Balin," answered one of the men, "and my brother's name is Balan. Three years ago I struck down one of your slaves whom I heard had spoken ill of me, and you sent me away for a three years' exile. Then I thought that if we would sit by the well and would overcome every knight who passed by you would be a more willing to take me back. But today some man of yours came along and conquered us both. What do you wish with me?"

"Be wiser for falling," Arthur said. "Your chair is in the hall vacant. Take it again and be my knight once more."

So Balin went back into the old hall of the Knights of the Round Table, and they all clashed their cups together drinking his welcome, and sang until all of Arthur's banners of war hanging overhead began to stir as they always did on the battlefield.

Meanwhile the men who had gone to collect the taxes from King Pellam returned.

"Sir King," they cried to Arthur, "We scarcely could see Pellam for the gloom in his hall. That man who used to be one of your roughest and most riotous enemies is now living like a monk in his castle and has all sorts of holy things about him, and says he has given up all matters of the world. He wouldn't even talk about the tribute money and told us that his heir Sir Garlon, attended to his business for him, so we went to Garlon and after a struggle we got it. Then we came away, but as we passed through the deep woods we found one of your knights lying dead, killed by a spear. After we had buried him, we talked with an old woodman who told us that there's a demon of the woods who had probably slain the knight. This demon, he said, was once a man who lived all alone and learned black magic. He hated people so much that when he died he became a fiend. The woodman showed us the cave where he has seen the demon go in and out and where he lives. We saw the print of a horse's hoof, but no more."

"Foully and villainously slain!" cried Arthur thinking of his poor killed knight in the woods. "Who will go hunt this demon of the woods for me?"

"I!" exclaimed Balan, ready to dart instantly away, but first he embraced Balin, saying, "Good brother, hear; don't let your angry passions conquer you, fight them away. Remember how these knights of the Round Table welcomed you back. Be a loving brother with them and don't imagine that there is hatred among them here any more than there is in heaven itself."

When bad Balan left, Balin set himself to learn how to curb his wildness and become a courteous and manly knight. He always hovered about Lancelot, the pattern knight of all the court, to see how he did, and when he noticed Lancelot's sweet smiles and his little pleasant words that gladdened every knight or churl or child that he passed, Balin sighed like some lame boy who longed to scale a mountain top and could scarcely limp up one hundred feet from the base.

"It's Lancelot's worship of the queen that helps to make him gentle," said he to himself. "If I want to be gentle I must serve and worship lovely Queen Guinevere too. Suppose I ask the King to let me have some token of hers on my shield instead of these pictures of wild beasts with big teeth and grins. Then whenever I see it I'll forget my wild heats and violences."

"What would you like to bear on your shield?" asked the king when Balin spoke to him about his wish.

"The queen's own crown-royal," replied Balin.

Then the queen smiled and turned to Arthur. "The crown is only the shadow of the king," she said, "and this crown is the shadow of that shadow. But let him have it if it will help him out of his violences."

"It's no shadow to me, my queen," cried Balan, "no shadow to me, king. It's a light for me."

So Balin was given the crown to bear on his shield and whenever he looked at it, it seemed to make him feel gentle and patient.

But one morning as he heard Lancelot and the queen talking together on the white walk of lilies that led to Queen Guinevere's bower, all his old passions seemed to come back and filled him and he darted madly away on his horse, not stopping until he had passed the fount where he had sat with his brother Balan and had dived into the skyless woods beyond. There the gray-headed woodman was hewing away wearily at a branch of a tree.

"Give me your axe, Churl," cried Balin, and with one sharp cut he struck it down.

"Lord!" cried the woodman, "you could kill the devil of this woods if any one can. Just yesterday I saw a flash of him. Some people say that our Sir Garlon has learned black magic too and can ride armed unseen. Just look into the demon's cave."

But Balin said the woodman was foolish, and rode off through the glades with a drooping head. He did not notice that on his right a great cavern chasm yawned out of the darkness. Once he heard the mosses beneath him thud and tremble and then the shadow of a spear shot from behind him and ran along the ground. The light of somebody's armor flashed by him and vanished into the woods.

Balin dashed after this but he was so blinded by his rage that he stumbled against a tree, breaking his lance and falling from his horse. He sprang to his feet and darted off again not knowing where he was going until the massy battlements of King Pellam's castle appeared.

"Why do you wear the crown royal on your shield?" Pellam's men asked him as soon as they saw him.

"The fairest and best of ladies living gave it to me," Balin replied, as he stalled his horse and strode across the court to the banquet hall.

"Why do you wear the royal crown?" Sir Garlon asked him as they sat at table.

"The queen whom Lancelot and we all worship as the fairest, best and purest gave it to me to wear," said Balin.

But Sir Garlon only hissed at him and made fun of what he said, and Balin reached for a wonderful goblet embossed with a sacred picture to hurl it at Garlon, but the thought of the gentle queen about whom he was talking soothed his temper. The next morning, however, in the court Sir Garlon mocked him again and Balin's face grew black with anger. He tore out his sword from its shield and crying out fiercely, "Ha! I'll make a ghost of you!" struck Garlon hard on the helmet.

The blade flew and splintered into six parts which clinked upon the stones below while Garlon reeled slowly backward and fell. Balin dragged him by the banneret of his helmet and struck again, but in a minute twenty warriors with pointed lances were making for him from the castle. Balin dashed his fist against the foremost face then dipped through a low doorway out along a glimmering gallery until he saw the open portals of King Pellam's chapel. He slipped inside this and crept behind the door while the others howled past outside.

Before the golden altar he noticed lying the brightest lance he had ever seen with its point painted red with blood. Seizing it he pushed it out through an open casement, leaned on it and leaped in a half-circle to the ground outside. Running along a path he found his horse, mounted him and scudded away. An arrow whizzed to his right, another to his left and a third over his head while he heard Pellam crying out feebly, "Catch him, catch him! he mustn't pollute holy things!"

But Balin quickly dove beneath the tree boughs and raced through miles of thick groves and open meadowland until his good horse, at last wearied and uncertain in his footsteps, stumbled over a fallen oak and threw Balin headlong.

As Balin rose to his feet he looked at the Queen's crown on his shield and then drew the shield from off his neck. "I have shamed you," he cried. "I won't carry you any more," and he hung it up on a branch and threw himself on the ground in a passionate sleep.

While he slept there the beautiful wicked Vivien came riding by through the woodland alleys with her squire, warbling a song.

"What is this?" she cried as she noticed the shield on the tree, "a shield with a crown upon it. And there's a horse. Where's the rider? Oh! there he is sleeping. Hail royal knight, I'm flying away from a bad king and the knight I was riding with was hurt, and my poor squire isn't of much use in helping me. But you, Sir Prince, will surely guide me to the Warrior King Arthur, the Blameless, to get me some shelter."

"Oh, no, I'll never go to Arthur's court again," cried Balin. "I'm not a prince any more, or a knight. I have brought the Queen's crown to shame."

Then Vivien laughed shrilly, and told Balin a wicked story about the Queen which she just imagined in her wicked mind. But she told it so cunningly and smiled so sunnily as she talked that Balin believed her and he flew into the more passionate rage because he thought he had been deceived in the Queen whom he had worshipped.

He ground his teeth together, sprang up with a yell, tore the shield from the branch and cast it on the ground, drove his heel into the royal crown, stamped and trampled upon it until it was all spoiled, then hurled the shield from him out among the forest weeds and cursed the story, the queen and Vivien.

His weird yell had thrilled through the woods where Balan was lurking for his foe. "There! that's the scream of the wood-devil I'm looking for," he thought. "He has killed some knight and trampled on his shield to show his loathing of our order and the queen. Devil or man, whichever you are, take care of your head!"

With that he made swiftly for his poor brother whom he did not recognize. Sir Balin spoke not a word but snatched the buckler from Vivien's squire, vaulted on his horse and in a moment had clashed with his brother's armor. King Pellam's holy spear reddened with blood as it pricked through Balan's shield to his flesh. Then Balin's horse, wearied to death, rolled back over his rider and crushed him inward and both men fell and swooned away.

"The fools!" cried Vivien to her young squire. "Come, you Sir Chick, loosen their casques and see who they are. They must be rivals for the same woman to fight so hard."

"They are happy," her gentle squire answered, "if they died for love. And Vivien, though you beat me like your dog I would die for you."

"Don't die, Sir Boy," cried Vivien, "I'd rather have a live dog than a dead lion. Come away, I don't like to look at them," and she made her palfrey leap off over the fallen oak tree.

Balin was the first to wake from his swoon. As soon as he saw his brother's face he crawled over to his side moaning. Then Balan faintly opened his eyes and seeing who was with him kissed Balin's forehead.

"O Balin," he cried, "why didn't you carry your own shield which I knew, and why did you trample all over this one which bears the queen's own crown which I know?"

So Balin slowly gasped out the whole story of his shield. Then they each said good-night to the other and closed their eyes, locked in each other's arms.

[The end]
Molly K. Bellew's short story: Balin And Balan

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN